Thoughts on the iPad mini, before seeing it.

I will reserve judgment until I can get my hands on one myself, which should be tomorrow, as it goes on sale in Germany today, but I’m at work.

Having said that, and without any finality, I can’t see myself wanting to own one.

Currently I use an iPad 3 as my tablet. I love it. The only thing I don’t like is the thickness having come from an iPad 2, but I’m sure Apple will fix this issue with the next one – meaning iPad 5. I will pass on the iPad 4 that was just introduced alongside the mini.

I also have a 27″ iMac (mid 2011) which is maxed out on everything, and an iPhone 5. All of these devices have Retina displays. Even the iMac is damn close to it, so I just can’t see myself going back on resolution.

Yesterday I was watching some movies on my iPad, and I found myself thinking “This screen is so awesome. Just the right size.” which really got me thinking about the mini. I don’t think I would trade the screen of my iPad for the convenience of the minis’ less weight.

What I like about the mini, again, without having touched one is obviously the great design, the aluminium (Hi Jony!) body, the stereo speakers, and the thinness and lightness.
But those are all things I fully expect Apple to work on for the next generation of it’s bigger brother.

One caveat: I might get an iPad mini after all, for my son. He’s pretty much got a monopoly on the use of our 9.7″ iPad, and I would really like to be able to use it myself more. It seems the smaller size coupled with the lightness would be a good fit for him. I’m thinking christmas.

I will post a follow-up to this in the next few days, after I got a chance to play with the mini, and after I see my son’s reaction to it, but right now I can’t see myself getting one. We will see.